Fellow Focus: Leo Raykher
In this conversation with Pathways Fellow Brooke Luokkala, 2025-26 Undergraduate Humanities Honors Fellow Leo Raykher discusses his thesis project on political surveillance and what he has enjoyed about being a Fox Fellow so far.
Brooke Luokkala: Hi, Leo. Thanks for joining me. Can you tell me about your project?
Leo Raykher: My project is in the History Department. It actually concerns a relative of mine: my great-great uncle, who was a leftist lawyer. His is a story I have always been curious about, but there hasn't been a real deep dive.
Initially, I wanted to do just a simple biography, but looking at his personal correspondence, I thought there was a much richer story there. Throughout his life, he was heavily surveilled by the FBI. And so, my thesis puts government surveillance in conversation with his [private papers] to try to figure out what the narrative of a life means. The FBI certainly constructed a narrative of who this guy was, and of course, members of my family have constructed a narrative of who he was. I want to see how those two narratives are similar, how they are different, and what that tells us about the nature of political surveillance and how people are labeled.
BL: As a 2025-26 Life/Story Fellow, what does “Life/Story” mean to you? And how does your thesis project fit the Fox Center’s research theme?
LR: I think my project fits the [Life/Story] theme by dismantling, or trying to unpack, what the idea of a life story is. How can we create that retroactively? And how can forces outside of our control create a life story? I think surveillance inherently shrinks a person into a box and creates a story of their life, and I'm trying to investigate how that happens.
BL: And what has been your favorite part about being a Fox Fellow so far?
LR: I've really enjoyed being able to work with people outside of my department and get perspectives from people in other fields. I think it's been very valuable to break out of some of the more rigid boxes that might apply to your [own] department. It's really great to get eyes on your project that can look at it from a different angle.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.